


After All This Searching, What Is There Left To Do But Breath & Bleed

by gansey_is_our_king



Series: Breath & Bleed In This Sweet Silence The King Has Left [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gansey and Blue are cute, Henry Cheng and his wonderful car are featured for a few brief paragraphs, M/M, Not much Pynch in this sorry, Pre-Epilogue, TRK spoilers, Therefore There Are SPOILERS, post trk, this might be cute also I dunno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 21:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6824182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gansey_is_our_king/pseuds/gansey_is_our_king
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gansey wakes up.  This picks up immediately after the final chapter of The Raven King--but before the epilogue.  Major TRK spoilers.  Some angst.  You have been warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After All This Searching, What Is There Left To Do But Breath & Bleed

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I am completely new to posting my writing online for all to see and relatively new to this lovely fandom--a friend introduced me to The Raven Cycle earlier this year and then cackled maniacally as I waited in agony for The Raven King to arrive. This is just me trying (and failing) to get over all these wonderful characters.

Gansey woke. He peeled open his eyes. In the sky above his head swollen storm clouds crashed together in a blue and purple bruise. It was raining. The wet grass stuck to his mussed hair and the now wrinkled Aglionby sweater that Henry Cheng had insisted he take before he went down underneath the Green House to search for Glendower.

  
It seemed like a hundred hours had passed since then.

  
“Gansey?”

  
Blue touched his face. Her skin was cold.

  
He knew that it was her hand in a moment. He knew that it was her hand even before she leaned over to look at him—her nose pink in the cold and her small mouth pulled tight in her pale face. Her hair stuck out. It always stuck out—but the dark spikes seemed to be messier and wilder than ever in the damp air.

  
Gansey took a breath.

  
It tasted sweet and wet. It tasted real.

  
His heart thrummed in his chest.

  
He was alive. He was alive. He was alive.

  
He sighed. “Jane.”

  
Blue covered her mouth with her other hand like she wanted to hide that her bottom lip trembled at his voice. Her eyes were bright as she stared down at him. Gansey reached over and put his hand on her hand. He could feel her warm breath on his palm. He could feel her cold skin.

  
He could feel her and it was magical and wonderful.

  
“Gansey three… you crazy bastard.”

  
This was a new voice—but one that Gansey also recognized. He became aware in that moment, as he continued to lie there on his back in the wet grass, with a smell that was unmistakable as rain in his nose, that there was movement all around him. He turned his head and saw that Henry Cheng was leaning over behind him. His spectacular hair was rather less spectacular after scrambling around in a dark tunnel in search for a Welsh king and then scrambling around in the dirt with a possessed Adam Parrish.

  
He looked amused and surprised and delighted at the same time.

  
Gansey let Blue take his hand.

  
“How do you feel?” she said.

  
He considered. “I feel… fine. I think. So what exactly happened?”

  
Blue looked at Henry. He shrugged. Blue opened her mouth and then closed it.

  
Gansey sighed. The breath rushed from him.

  
“Just tell me.”

  
“I thought you were dead in a ditch.”

  
The third voice came from his other side. Gansey looked around.

  
Ronan was kneeling in the grass.

  
He looked terrible. His face was streaked and stark white in the dull afternoon light that peeked through the clouds. There were dark shadows underneath his bloodshot eyes and his lids were rimmed with red—all evidence from his last sleepless night in the BMW driver seat. Gansey saw that fresh bruises had bloomed around his throat where Adam had dug his fingers into the skin when he was not quite Adam. Dried rusted blood was smeared across his cheek.

  
Gansey smiled a little bit. “I think that I _was_ dead in a ditch.”

  
Ronan did not smile. He ran one hand over his bristled hair. “Yeah. Me too.”

  
His voice came out low and rough and broken.

  
His titanium mask had slipped when his mother died—but as Gansey lay there and looked at Ronan he realized that it had not been replaced. It was odd and also rather nice to see—even if the cause made him ache inside.

  
Gansey blinked.

  
He could not think about what had happened to Aurora Lynch right now.

  
It hurt too much.

  
“Is anyone else here?” he asked as a distraction. “What about Adam?”

  
“Right here.” His drawling Henrietta accent was more pronounced than ever as the owner came to stand near Ronan. He was hunched and tired. There were furious red bruises around his each wrist where Blue had secured the ribbon. Gansey saw that the Orphan Girl still clung to his arm with her small white hand.

  
He did not fight the rush of relief and blind happiness.

  
He was alive. Blue was safe. Adam was safe. Ronan was safe.

  
It was over.

  
He scrambled to sit in the grass beside Blue—and the moment he did she threw arms around him and pressed her cold cheek to his neck and breathed. He could feel his heart beating in his chest. He could feel her heart beating next to it.

  
Henry snickered. “You two are cute.”

  
Ronan sneered. “Yeah. It almost makes me sick.”

  
Adam looked at him. “Almost.”

  
Ronan was silent at that—but his mouth twitched a little bit.

  
Blue pulled back and wiped her face on her sleeve. Then she got to her feet. She stuck out her hand to help Gansey stand too. The soaked ground sank underneath his shoes. His feet were wet. Gansey looked around him. It was still raining. The cold water misted across his face as he turned to regard the BMW and the sleek Fisker that were parked in the road. The slick tarmac was still littered with mint leaves and stones and blood spots and wet yellowed paper scraps that was scrawled with black ink—the stuff that Ronan had pulled from his dreams as the demon tried to unmake him.

  
Henry leaned down to grab one scrap and turned it over in his fingers.

  
“What is this? Is it Latin? It looks like Latin to me."

  
Adam took the paper from him.

  
“Yeah. It is Latin.”

  
He put the scrap in his pocket—something that Gansey and Ronan both noticed.

  
Gansey turned as Blue pressed close to his side.

  
“What now?” she asked him.

  
He sighed and there was a lump in his throat as he spoke.

  
“I want to go home.”

 

*

  
  
He sat next to Blue in the back seat of the BMW with the Orphan Girl curled on his other side and rain striking the windows. Adam rode shotgun as Ronan drove. No one spoke. The engine was their soundtrack now—roaring underneath the smooth charcoal hood.

  
Gansey could feel Blue shivering a little beside him.

  
He reached over and touched her arm. She looked at him. She blinked.

  
Then she grabbed his hand and held it.

  
In the rear view mirror Gansey could see that Henry was still trailing behind the BMW in his Fisker—sticking close as Ronan took them back to Henrietta. He drove past the public high school and the shopping mall and the diner where Blue worked. He pulled over when he reached 300 Fox Way and slammed the gearstick into park. Henry stopped there too. He killed the engine and got out just as there was a crashing thud from the house.

  
Gansey looked around.

  
Maura and Calla were running down the front path. The little wooden sign on the lawn with Physic hand printed on it flapped in the breeze as Maura reached the street. Blue shoved open her door. “Mom!” She scrambled out and allowed her mother to pull her close in an embrace that made Gansey ache inside.

  
He had done this.

  
He knew that it must have been terrible for Maura and Calla to have to wait here at 300 Fox Way while he continued his search for Glendower—and while the demon attempted to unmake Cabeswater and Ronan. It could have unmade Blue too. It could have unmade them all.

  
He got out and stood in the road.

  
Blue hugged Calla too and then all three turned to look at Gansey.

  
Calla sneered. “How are you still alive?” She darted her sharp gaze to Adam and Ronan inside the BMW and then to Henry. He was hanging back near the Fisker. His fingers were clenched tight around a small object that Gansey suspected to was RoboBee.

  
“What happened?” Maura asked them in a thin voice. She was looking at Gansey when she said it—but she still clutched Blue to her side like she could disappear in a moment. “I want to know everything. You had better come inside.”

  
Gansey looked at Henry. He looked at the BMW where Adam and Ronan were waiting.  
Ronan nodded through the streaked window.

  
Gansey swallowed. “Okay.”

 

*

 

It took a little more than an hour to fill Maura and Calla in on the tunnel underneath the Green House and Glendower and the demon. Adam and Henry fumbled to make tea in the kitchen while Ronan disappeared down the hall to call Declan. Gansey talked. He talked until his voice was hoarse—but then he reached the part where Blue kissed him and he had to stop.

  
He was not sure what had happened after that.

  
Blue reached over and touched his wrist.

  
The contact was like an electric shock that ran all through his arm and shoulder.

  
“He died. He was dead. But then Adam said that maybe we could sacrifice Cabeswater for him and bring him back. So we asked it… and I think it did.” She looked across the table to Adam then. He was slumped with his tea untouched and cold and his hands tucked in his faded jacket. The scratches across his cheek had scabbed over. Chainsaw had settled on his right shoulder when he sat down and still looked content there.

  
Ronan was installed in the chair beside him.

  
Gansey met his gaze for a moment and as he did an odd jolt went through him.

  
_I am alive. I am free._

  
He looked back over at Blue. Now that the story had been told she plucked at a loose thread in her ripped shirt. She looked tired. Her still damp hair was sticking to her face.

  
He wondered… or maybe he hoped… that she wanted him to stay the night.

  
He did not want to leave her. He never wanted to leave her.

  
For a moment the kitchen was silent around him—then Chainsaw croaked as the Orphan Girl slunk over beside Adam and clutched at his arm with one delicate hand. Her hooves had marked the kitchen floor with mud and grass. Her white blond hair poked out under the frayed skullcap that she had been wearing since she had arrived—pulled from a dream world.

  
She still looked the part.

  
Ronan pushed back his chair. “Good idea. Time we went home.”

  
Henry yawned and stretched. “Yeah. Me too.”

  
Gansey looked to Adam. “What about you?”

  
“I…” Adam hesitated.  

 

Blue looked at Gansey.  Maura looked at Calla.  Henry looked out the window. 

  
It was Ronan that broke the silence.

  
“I can give you a ride.”

  
His face was a little pink as he said it. Gansey remembered what Adam had told him at the Barns about the kiss. It seemed impossible that he could somehow fit that memory inside his head along with all the other things that had happened to him in the last week—but the moment was still clear and vivid in his mind.

  
Adam nodded. “Okay. Sure.”

  
His thick Henrietta accent slipped out again—betraying his exhaustion.

  
He stood slowly and carefully so as not dislodged Chainsaw from his shoulder. The Orphan Girl took his hand at once. Gansey found that he was not all that surprised. He had guessed how Ronan felt about Adam—so it made some sense that his dream creations would care for him too.

  
Henry hugged Blue and then waved to everyone else.

  
“It has been a pleasure. Goodnight.”

  
He disappeared down the front hall.

  
Adam bumped knuckles with Gansey. Ronan said nothing—but his expression was bare and open and Gansey could see the emotion there. He muttered goodnight as he walked out with Adam trailing behind him. The front door snapped shut behind them for the last time that night.

  
Blue turned to Gansey.

  
She did not seem to know what to say next.

  
Maura and Calla shared a glance and then Calla shrugged.  “I think we had better give you two a minute.”

  
Maura frowned at Blue. “I want you to get some sleep tonight.”

  
Blue sighed. “I know. I will. I am still a little bit sensible.” She leaned her back on the counter as she waited for her mother and Calla to retreat—and then once the kitchen was quiet she sighed and looked at Gansey instead. “How are you really feeling? Do you remember anything that happened after you… well… after we kissed?”

  
Gansey shook his head. “No. I mean… I was dead. Jesus. This is complicated.”

  
He moved over to stand beside her.  Blue leaned her head on his shoulder.

  
“I missed you when you were gone.”

  
This was whispered in the silence.

  
Gansey slipped his arm around Blue. From where he was standing with his head turned she was a narrow and small silhouette illuminated in the light from the elaborate but rather impractical chandelier that hung above the kitchen table. He could see her lashes. He could see her throat and her curved shoulder and her mouth.

  
He wondered what would happen if he kissed her now.

  
He was not the same as he had been before—he could feel it as he stood there with her hair tickling his ear and her warm breath on his neck and her arm pressed to his side through his still wet sweater. He thought that she must be thinking the same thing that he was right now.

  
Gansey touched her cheek.

  
“Jane.”

  
Blue sighed. Then she shook her head and stepped back from him.

  
“Not right now. Not yet. I just… I think I need to figure everything out first.”

  
He nodded. He understood.

  
She was sensible and he could not hate her for it.

  
He could not hate her at all.

  
The house creaked and groaned around them as Blue led him across the silent hall to the reading room. She turned on the light. Gansey looked at the card table. He looked at the sofa where he had attempted sleep before Noah appeared to draw him away to the roof. The blanket and pillow he had used that night were now folded and placed on the side table next to a lamp. Blue helped him smooth the sheet across the sofa cushions and spread out the blanket. She stood closer than she needed too—but Gansey was glad for the excuse to brush his hand over her wrist and knock his shoulder on her arm.  
He could smell her shampoo and wet clothes.

  
Blue hugged him one more time before she retreated to her own room. She pressed her cheek to his cheek—just like she had done that first night beside the Camaro on the winding mountain road and in the cramped stairwell at the toga party and in a dozen other places that Gansey had committed to memory.

  
He touched her throat and ran his fingers through her hair.  He sighed when her lashes tickled his cheek.

  
Then she pulled back. “Well. I guess… goodnight.”

  
She was blushing.

  
Gansey sat down on the sofa. “Goodnight.” He watched her leave. She pulled the door shut on him for privacy even though the house was almost deserted and then he listened to the stairs creaking as she climbed to the second floor. Not long after that a distant door snapped shut and he guessed that she was in her room.

  
He lay back and pulled the covers over him.

  
He was still wearing his wet clothes but he did not mind because the cold was good.

  
It was real.

  
Gansey closed his eyes and breathed.

  
He was alive. It was over. He was alive.

**Author's Note:**

> I have some more scenes in the works that are indirectly connected to this one--so if you liked it stay tuned!


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